Emma Lazarus Quotes

Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.

For a round hundred years it was a national ideal that the United States should be the asylum for the poor and the oppressed of every land. This very early came to be known as the "traditional" American attitude towards immigration.

Every year, thousands of immigrants, asylum seekers and migrants assume great hardships to find safety in America. They choose our country because they see the United States as a land of justice, as a place of safety, and a beacon of hope.

Make it [the United States] the home of the skillful, the industrious, the fortunate, the happy, as well as the asylum of the distressed ... Let but this, our celebrated goddess, Liberty, stretch forth her fair hand toward the people of the old world—tell them to come, and bid them welcome.

Since its very beginnings, America has been a refuge for the persecuted— a “city on the hill” beckoning the victims of political, religious, ethnic, and other forms of repression.

People are not trying to get into China, they're trying to get out of China. The United States is the only great country where people are trying to get into to this country for obvious reasons.

America is the last great goal of these migrations.

My father described this tall lady who stands in the middle of the New York harbor, holding high a torch to welcome people seeking freedom in America. I instantly fell in love.

America has been a beacon of hope for vulnerable people throughout the world.

America is now … the only country of tranquility and should be the asylum of all those who wish to avoid the scenes which have crushed our friends in other lands

Our freer, but yet far from freed, land is the asylum, if asylum there be, for the hope of man.

I think it fortunate for the United States to have become the asylum for so many virtuous patriots of different denominations.

We shall be inconsistent with ourselves if, after boasting of having opened an asylum for the oppressed of all nations … we make the terms of admission to the full enjoyment of that asylum so hard as is now proposed.

A refuge for the oppressed from every land and clime.

America looked like the land of the future, separated by an ocean from the misfortunes, follies, and crimes of Europe.

When my mother, sisters and I arrived on the shores of America when I was 8 years old, the boat on which we came, a freighter, passed the Statue of Liberty.

When you look at what's written under the Statue of Liberty, it's the immigrant story. It's about 'bring me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.' It's not about 'only bring me only your rich, your wealthy, your smart.'

Our nation is built on a proud history of providing refuge for the poor, persecuted, and disenfranchised.

We are a people unafraid to welcome 'your tired, your poor, your huddled masses,' because we measure others by the quality of their hopes for the future, not by the circumstances of their birth.

The bosom of America is open to receive not only the Opulent and respectable Stranger, but the oppressed and persecuted of all Nations And Religions; whom we shall wellcome to a participation of all our rights and previleges...

Who says Australia offers not a home for every poor Englishman, or any other countryman that finds his way to our shores? And what sort of thanks do we get for it?

For generations, America has served as a beacon of hope and freedom for those outside her borders, and as a land of limitless opportunity for those risking everything to seek a better life. Their talents and contributions have continued to enrich our country.

Living in New York City, I am reminded by the Statue of Liberty that the United States of America has always welcomed those yearning to breathe free and seek a better life.

My parents came to the United States in the early years of this century as part of a wave of Russian Jewish immigrants seeking freedom and opportunity in the New World.

In Romania, of course, gymnastics is among the most popular sports, and my parents had a dream of escaping the Ceausescu regime and giving their child a better life. So they came to the United States and put me in gymnastics.